Santorum, Romney and Republican Lawmakers Attacks on Women

Talking Points Memo has posted an article about a homemade bomb explosion at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Grand Chute, Wisconsin last night. The FBI has now entered the investigation to assist local law enforcement.

Santorum was quick to issue a statement in which he stated in part, “Violence is never the answer.” However, how could Mr. Santorum, or Mr. “I’ll get rid of Planned Parenthood” Romney, expect that their words and actions would not be interpreted by the crazies in the Republican Taliban as a call to renew exactly the kind of violence which occurred in Wisconsin last evening?

Can they really believe that the advancement of their ultra-conservative agenda which was been coined as the “War on Women” through not only their candidacies, but federal government legislation would not bring forth the exact action by the right-wing nut jobs that I believe should rightfully be called domestic terrorism. Since many Republican attempts to de-fund Planned Parenthood have failed, shouldn’t they have expected that the extremists within their parties would revert to their violent tendencies?

The Swing State Poll released today indicates women are abandoning the Republican Presidential nominees in droves and turning to President Obama. His video released just a few days ago specifically for supporters of Planned Parenthood clearly shows his intent to support women’s health issues and Planned Parenthood.

There have been huge reactions across the country to the attacks on women’s health and on women’s issues in general. There are marches planned in state capitols across the country on April 28 through a group called Unite Against the War on Women. Here in Virginia the Women’s Strike Force PAC was created to hold those accountable at the election booth from our own legislature who voted for the Ultrasound and Personhood bills. But Republicans in Washington insist on carrying this fight forward illustrated by their stalwart opposition to the re-authorization the Violence against Women Act.

Are they so entirely tone deaf that they cannot hear? Are they so righteous that they believe only they know what is best for women? The fringe has proven they are willing to not just protest, but openly attack Planned Parenthood clinics and to murder doctors who attend to women’s health issues. It sickens me to see this type of violence renewed. Romney and Santorum, as well as folks like Bob McDonnell, Kathy Byron and Jill Vogel in Virginia, will surely say it has nothing to do with their positions and their cultivation of conservative social wedge issues, but we should all know better.

“If the Democrats said we had a war on caterpillars and every mainstream media outlet talked about the fact that Republicans have a war on caterpillars, then we’d have problems with caterpillars,” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt” airing this weekend. “It’s a fiction.”